We recently connected with Billy Ellmore and have shared our conversation below.

Billy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think my very first true inkling of wanting to pursue an artistic career occurred after performing in a high school musical. I realized how fun and exciting it was to assume the persona of a character and, frankly, I thought I was pretty darn good at it. Now to the candid and somewhat embarrassing chapter of this story. I wanted to be Anakin Skywalker. That’s right; my decision to pursue an artistic career was highly motivated by the desire to play the teenaged Darth Vader in the Star Wars prequels, which were casting at that time. My mother took me to get headshots and we mailed these out to a variety of talent agents in my home state of Wisconsin. She was very supportive of my passion and really made me believe it could be possible for me to get that role!

Quite obviously, I did not land the role of Anakin Skywalker, nor did I get the chance to audition. I never even heard back from the agencies until long after the role had been cast. As is typical for a teenager to do, I moved on to a new creative endeavor rather quickly after the Star Wars dream fizzled out. By the time I heard back from an agency, I had dyed my hair bright green, pierced up my face, and joined a heavy metal band. I decided no agency would want this new version of me and, besides, I was going to be a rock star now!

Billy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I don’t want to sugarcoat my response here. The one thing I can say about myself that holds true is that I have never adhered to any one specific discipline. In my view, I am simply a Creative. I am a jack of all trades, so to speak. Over the last 20 years, I have worked professionally on anything creative that I see fit–from writing copy, to photography, to acting, to tattooing, to digital product placement, and everything in between; I’ve done it all.

I think what sets me apart from others is that I have allowed myself the freedom to bounce back and forth between creative disciplines. In my view, this has made me versatile and incredibly useful to clients who desire both the ideas and the execution of the project. It also means that I’ve never stopped learning.

As an idea man, I want to see my vision through to its fullest extent. I generally don’t want to make compromises with myself. So, in many cases, I will teach myself a new artistic medium or skill to properly–sometimes quite literally–paint the picture that exists in my mind. Some might say this method is sacrificing quality for the sake of my own personal fulfillment and that is a valid concern. However, I know when I’m out of my depth and I have no problem working with other creatives when I am unable to learn a skill properly. I won’t half-ass something. I find this methodology makes me more robust as an artist; there is so much overlap in knowledge between disciplines that learning something new only improves my existing skills.

While it pains me to say this (due to its extreme expense for which I am still buried under), I think I really learned to foster my creative generalist mentality in art school. At the ripe age of 30, I decided to become a student of photography at SVA (School of Visual Arts) in NYC. At this point, I’d already had a number of creative careers and endeavors under my belt, but I had yet to see this as an asset and mostly saw myself as fickle. Even after a few semesters at SVA, I found myself troubled with my inability to focus solely on my photography. Instead of simply capturing what I saw with my eye, I felt the need to create something from my brain and then photograph it. I guess you could say I became a multi-media artist once I learned from my professors and critiques that this was okay. Perhaps that sounds silly or obvious, but I think a lot of us box ourselves into one discipline (hell, they call it a discipline for a reason) with the intention of becoming the best in the field. I don’t need to be the best at any one skill; I simply need to create my visions to the best of my ability. On top of that, I always wanted to stand out in a crowd.

I’ve always thought that I wanted to be famous. In art school, I spent the majority of my time working on projects that explored what it means to be a celebrity. Certainly there are celebrities who were established through their incredible skills, but mostly I found that a person becomes a celebrity once their image/name saturates the media, regardless of their talent or lack thereof. I discovered through social experiments that even the mere suggestion of someone being famous was enough for others to want a photo. So, my projects were proliferated with images of myself in various pop culture references. These projects were very near and dear to my heart not only because they helped me realize that being a celebrity is often a crapshoot, but also because I allowed myself to work with humor and my obsession with my own nostalgia for my youth in the 80s/90s.

What you will come to learn about me is that I work my nostalgia into so much of what I do as it is the fuel for my creativity. I’ll include some photos from the aforementioned project as evidence of just how passionate I am about the pop culture from my youth. I guess you could call it my brand and it is clearly the influence for my most recent project: a documentary film on the resurgence of 80s culture among the youth of today. I am incredibly proud of this project so far and very excited to share it with the world, provided all of our funding goals are met. This is another foray into a new discipline for me as I have yet to make a documentary film of my own, but I truly believe I learn best when I throw myself into the fire. I’m just continuing on my journey to be the most useful creative and adding filmmaker to my skillset gets me one step closer. I’m sure there are many more steps for me to take; perhaps I’ll never stop.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I’d say that a non-creative might look at me and question why I haven’t simply honed in on one specific medium or discipline. I think that people who studied a particular subject and landed a career in that field will look at any other passion or interest in their life as a simple hobby, whereas I see my hobbies as an asset for bolstering my career as a creative. I enjoy the mystery that is evoked when I simply state that I’m a creative. When asked what I do for a living, I cannot easily answer, but I think non-creatives more often can.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Well, if there’s any book I can suggest that has dramatically altered my relationship with my own creativity, it’s The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This book is structured as a self help program with weekly exercises and tasks that will help readers find their unique artistic voice. I found it truly helpful on a number of levels, including overcoming creative blocks and nurturing my creativity with solo “artist dates,” which I still practice today. I cannot recommend it enough; it’s literally my handbook for creative advice.

Contact Info:

• Website: 80sbabiesmovie.com, elk-foot.com
• Instagram: @80sBabiesmovie

Image Credits

elkfoot